A mini tourney- Spoilers

[Alkis]

I started the game with the idea to play as I normally do. I played the Germans before, but only once. Anyway, since it wouldn't be realistic to build a temple I started by building warrior but since I had the wheat tile without a mine yet, my town grew quickly to size two. I increased the luxuries rate and changed warrior to settler. So the first thing builded was a settler and I had 2 towns really early without even adding the worker to city.

By that time I had mines so I builded several warriors, then another two settlers. I made contact with the English first, then the Russians but they already had all technologies so I didn't have the chance to make any interesting deals.

Two good moves: First, I made a new city on the nearest dye tile. It was one square away from Berlin but I didn't mind that. After all it was a temporary town. This way I got a luxury really early. I would take forever to build a road there. Also when I finally abandoned the town I had a jungle tile transformed to grassland. That town served me well, I builded a barracks and many spearmen there, as well as many workers. Second, I put all my resourses in discovering a technology first. I chose Mathematics. When I got it, Liz gave me two techs plus gold for it, Cathy 2 techs and when I contacted Joan there was only Mysticism left so I exchanged it for that. With that I was finally equal in technology with the others. Then I chose currency, discovered it first and the same scenario repeated itself. I got everything and came out of the ancient times.

Then I discovered the Republic and changed goverment immediately. Of course Liz and Cathy were asking for a tribute from time to time. Well, since I am a peaceful person and for the sake of world peace, bla, bla I gave them what they wanted .

At one point I had a disaster. I got a message "barbarian uprising near Cologne", ok Cologne was more or less safe, but the barbs appeared near another town. I tried to give my gold away but there were no interesting deals, so the only thing I could do was establish embasies everywhere. I had only two warriors in the town so you can imagine that I lost both, plus a lot of gold, plus my work on temple, plus some citizens were killed. I never reload so I just accepted that and played on.

My neighbours fought several wars while I kept building marketplaces, libraries, temples etc. Very often the Russians used my territory to get to the English land and fight. Oh well, I didn't protest about that.

My biggest mistake was that I didn't realize that at same point the French were actually killing the English. I immediately allied with the French but it was too late. I just managed to get two towns from the English and that was all. Then I builded another two. Now, something really peculiar... although I had more than double culture than the French and even though some of their towns were surrounded by mine not one ever defected. If you see my saves, have a look at Strasburg, it has a city radius of only 4 tiles, all others are taken by me. Yet it didn't flip (wtf).

I got my golden age when I completed the Universal Suffrage (I also had ToE). These two plus Hoover dam are the only wonders I have built. Meanwhile the French who had almost wiped out the English were beating the Russians badly, so if I didn't want a really difficult position I had to take part in the war. I signed I MPP with the Russians and after war to France was declared I asked the help of the Iroquois and the Romans. The Egyptians were allied with the French so in the end it was Germany, Russia, Rome and Iroquois against France, Egypt and the Aztecs. In the end the Iroquois won against the Aztecs and got all of their small continent, Egypt destroyed the Romans and Germany beat France. The Russians were so weakened that after some 14 turns of war they were still fighting against the initial French expeditionary force who was inside their territory.

I was the main winner of the war. I took 2 towns and razed about 10. I am very glad that I finally got rid of all those French towns who were literally inside my kingdom. I also got a leader so I moved my Palace near the place where London once was. I builded 5 new towns and even though it's rather late in the game, they will grow quickly because the terrain is already worked and I have the money to rush buildings where needed.

It's 1455 AD now and I am ahead by 3 techs (Mass production, Motorized transportation and Electronics). I have 120 infantries and I am building Panzers now. I don't know if I will use them but anyway, I think I will make some dozens of them just in case.

Something strange happened when I could trade with Russia for the first time. I gave them a tech for furs plus money per turn. Then some rounds later I couldn't trade anymore. No one of us was in any wars. That way I lost not only the furs but also the gold per turn (thank you Firaxis). I think it's a bug isn't it? For some reason the AI considered the trade route disrupted, but why?

Another funny thing; During the war with France I had war weariness. I sure had because I was in Democracy and that was another "mistake" I think. At the time when I changed only the n turns in Anarchy seemed to be the problem. Anyway, despite the unrest in my cities and the fact that I had to allocate 30% to luxuries I stayed loyal to the Russians. Then at some point they signed a peace treaty with the French. I signed too. But now the Russians are furious towards me. Wtf, they dishonored our treaty and they are also mad at me?

From the members of our elite company you Sir Ralph are the most predictable I think . My guess is you attacked the Russians first and managed to get the area below the mountains. But my guess stops here, I don't know if you attacked the English in the jungle. I am very curious to see how you attacked and when.

And generally I am very curious to see how some of you, who are Masters of attack, played that position. The interesting thing is that the terrain isn't very hospitable. The Russians seem the obvious choice but then what? Will you sacrifice the many turns needed to attack the English in the jungle? As for myself I waited for the others to clear the jungle and when I finally got the land it wasn't jungle anymore .

In all, a very interesting and challenging game. At some point I thought I would be the only one not to win it.

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[Harovan]

Hehe , so I am the most predictable here, and probably attacked the Russians early, but maybe not the English? You are funny, Alkis. Sure I attacked them. Both. With archers, since iron was far.

I set up my 4 city archer production and pruned both English and Russians. Liz was easy prey and I took London early, razed one more city and got one for peace. But Cathy was a warmongering b1tch. She tried to extort me. Good that I already had prepared an archer stack to attack. I crippled the Russians as well, but not as much as the English. In general, this map was for slowmovers. Jungle to the north, hills and mountains to the south. I didn't bother to build horsemen till the dawn of the medieval age. After the early oscillating wars I REXed like there was no tomorrow. Claimed all land, jungle and mountains. The Russians had a bloody war with the English for thousands of years and permanently violated my borders. I let them go. Eventually they wiped the English out. They respawned on the eastern peninsula of our continent.

After I discovered Chivalry I upgraded about 10 prebuilt Horsemen to Knights and asked the Russians to leave. Of course, they declared war. I killed their forces easily, since they had neither horses nor iron after the early wars. Then attacked their cities. Again and again. I had some bad luck with my elites, no leader for long. Finally I made a leader about 400AD, who became my FP in London. A second one later became Bachs. Soon I had the Russians down to some 5 or 6 cities.

I had claimed a lot of land, but since I hadn't built any improvements till about 500AD, my culture was awfully low. Even less than in the first minitourney. I started to build up my cities. My 1-shield cities produced lots of workers. Together with my numerous slaves, they cleaned the jungle. By 1000AD it was gone. This made me a beautifull grassy coreland between my Palace and FP. My core cities built up in the order Library-Temple-Marketplace-(Aqueduct)-University-Bank-Cathedral. This was possible, since I had built my cities dense and had rushed Bachs. 4 luxuries made a comfortable Republic.

You probably noticed, that I haven't mentioned the French yet. They grew undisturbed (too far for my archers) and soon were the #1 civ, with about 4-5 techs lead. I started a race after them. My coastal 1-shield cities switched from workers to galleys. I sank about 10 galleys, until I had discovered both other continents. The civs there were backwards, and didn't even know each about other. I traded with them a bit, but didn't sell communications to them till the French started to build Magellans. Then I traded all communications and maps, made a couple of techs and money. About 1000AD the French lead was about 3 techs. They were in the industrial age and had Nationalism, I still had 2 mandantory medieval techs to research. Eventually the English attacked me. Funny, as they played OCC. They attacked a crappy city at the peninsula, I got from the Russians for peace, and failed. I sent 3 knights and wiped them out completely.

I stayed peaceful and broke even in tech with the ToE. After this, I got a lead. After I had Refining, I saw that I have no oil. The Russians have 1 resource. This sealed their death. They were already at war with Egypt. I didn't want them to ally up with Joan and signed a MPP with her. It was cheap, only 10 gold. That was wise. As soon as the war begun, I saw a stack of 196 french units approaching Russia. It's the biggest stack I ever saw. I succeeded to take 2 Russian cities with Cavalries (I had to research MilTrad, since nobody else did). A third, the Egyptians took. Of course, the one with the oil, dang! The Russians were gone, and I took the egyptian city, securing the oil for me.

This is the current status. It's 1490AD, I will have Motorized Transportation in 5 turns. I have a lead of 2 techs, have by far the biggest territory, but in the powergraph I am only the 2nd. That doesn't matter. I think, I get some Panzers and decide, what civ will make my GA (didn't have it yet).

Or I stay peaceful and build the spaceship. Anyway, I think I have the game in the pocket.

[nbarclay]

Dateline: Paris, Germany, 170 AD

I’ve played the game to 880 AD so far, but I’m going to break up its story into parts.

Dateline: Paris, Germany, 170 AD

I tried a “settler pump” opening again, but a combination of jungle, mountains, and, worst of all, barbarians really messed it up. Berlin churned out lots of workers in the early years (with a granary, it could do a worker in two turns or a settler in four), but the number and quality of cities I could found wasn’t what I really wanted. I was also in some pretty serious trouble in terms of research. Still, all those workers Berlin churned out were a big help in making a dent in the jungles. (The first save game in the attached zip file is from around the time I finished my initial expansion.)

With my natural growth hemmed in earlier than I had hoped for, warfare looked like the only option. I decided Russia should be my target, partly because it was already at war with England and France but mostly to consolidate my frontiers so I wouldn’t have powerful neighbors all around me.

But then Joan painted a beautiful bull’s-eye on Paris. The city already had the Pyramids, and then it got a significant head start building the Great Library. “Ah-ha,” my mind went. If Joan completed the Great Library and I took it, I would be caught up with my rivals in tech! Better, if I gambled on counting on that strategy and it worked, I could avoid buying or researching anything not needed for the military campaign (or the associated cultural campaign, which required libraries).

I’d already started upgrading warriors to swordsmen for my planned war, and it was a simple (albeit not instantaneous) matter to shift my forces from the Russian front to the French one. I started my attack in 450 BC and actually ended up working my way around Paris waiting for the Great Library to be completed. I finally captured the city (and the Library) in 50 AD.

In the meantime, I’d decided I had enough troops and shifted my production to libraries in order to build up enough culture to hold my conquests. Paris did flip on me during the war (I didn’t even try to stop it while France’s capital was nearby), but I eventually took the rest of the cities in the region except for one. Then the French capital shifted to Grenoble on the northeastern peninsula and I decided to make peace and stuff a bunch of swordsmen in Paris to try to keep it from flipping. (I’d been stationing my swordsmen just outside the city so I could recapture it immediately if it flipped.)

France gave me its remaining cities other than its capital in return for peace, including Hannover, an isolated and essentially worthless German city they’d managed to capture. The year was 170 AD.

Just a little before the war ended, I got my first great leader, who rushed my forbidden palace in Lyons southeast of Paris. With a couple swordsmen for a garrison in a city with only one French “citizen” and no known French culture when I took it, the risk seemed acceptable. I would have preferred a location in northern England, but getting the FP built quickly seemed more important and the world’s technology seemed to be progressing too quickly for another attack using swordsmen. (Then, too, I needed a large garrison in Paris if I wanted to keep my wonders, and swordsmen couldn’t do garrison duty and attack England at the same time.)

As a footnote, when the German Republic was instituted after the war, Germany found itself the largest, most productive, most literate, and wealthiest nation in the known world. (Which probably shouldn’t be surprising since it controlled essentially all of the land originally held by two nations, and its forbidden palace served as a capital of the second “nation” for corruption purposes. I'd even used pop-rushing to finish building at least a couple libraries in conquered French territory.)

The enclosed zip file contains two saves: one from around the time I finished my initial expansion and the other from when I took Paris. If you download them, you might want to put them in a separate folder since I don’t have my name in the individual files.

[nbarclay]

Dateline: “The Briar Patch” - Russia, 770 AD.

After the conquest of France, Germany enjoyed over three centuries of peace and prosperity interrupted only by a brief “training exercise” capturing the French capital when they were rude enough not to give up a second city they’d founded. At first, Germany relied solely on the Great Library for its technological progress, but after learning of Gunpowder, Bismarck became fascinated and ordered his people to see what other chemical marvels they could come up with. That decision would later prove to be highly fortuitous.

During that period, Germany’s military was largely neglected in favor of peaceful pursuits. Berlin started work on the Sistine Chapel to show the world that the nation could produce great wonders of its own instead of having to conquer them.

The Germans obtained contact with the other nations of the world in 330 AD. Germany found that its culture was not yet the world’s greatest, but that was gaining ground rapidly. In other non-military respects, Germany had no rival.

Then, sometime in the early 500’s, Russia decided to attack. (I’m almost sure I agreed to the demand they made right before they attacked, but either I clicked the wrong place or they pulled one of the most reprehensible double-crosses in history.) The nasty thing was that most of Germany’s forces were still in the North serving as garrisons and contemplating one last “training exercise” against France when the latest peace treaty expired. The nastier thing was that Russia had longbowmen to attack with.

But then fate dealt Germany two trump cards. First, Russia cut off Germany’s only connected iron supply. Neither side knew it at the time, but that turned out to be one of the hugest mistakes in history. Because around 560 AD, a great leader emerged to rush Leonardo’s Workshop to completion, dealing Germany its second trump card. Germany entered a golden age, and was cranking out horsemen like there was no tomorrow. Better, the discovery of Military Tradition was now less than a century away.

(As a side note, I don’t mind waiting to connect or reconnect a resource so I can defer building newer units, but I regard deliberately disconnecting my own resources as too much of an exploit and too unrealistic. It seems reasonable that a nation cut off from a resource might say, “We don’t need it yet, so we’ll build units with what we have and upgrade them when we’re ready.” But deliberately building obsolete units when both the technology and the resources for more modern ones are in place is much harder to justify.)

For the next century or so, Germany was content with a defensive holding action, using an alliance with England (obtained for two luxuries and a handful of pocket change) to help keep the northernmost of Russia’s forces busy. Fortunately, the Russian generals were total incompetents. When the initial attack failed beyond taking a single, almost worthless city (guess which one), reinforcements tended most often to come in one unit at a time. The results of such idiocy generally looked more like executions than battles. On two occasions, Russia even tried to send a settler escorted only by a single spear unit through my territory. Thanks for the free workers, Cathy!

Then Germany figured out how to turn its horsemen into cavalry. From then on, every turn, six or seven more newly upgraded cavalry units swept into Russia (after a slight delay crossing the border). Interestingly, I learned of Education through the Great Library about that time, so essentially my only cavalry were upgraded horsemen and knights. Cities that had been cranking out horsemen like mad suddenly found themselves too busy with other pursuits to take the time building cavalry from the ground up.

Elite sword units first established for the French campaign opened the offensive with an attack on Odessa, since the area’s rugged terrain prevented the cavalry from pulling ahead of them. Germany’s third great leader emerged from the battle and immediately formed a cavalry army. The very next turn, another great leader emerged from another victory by antiquated elite swordsmen and rushed the Heroic Epic to completion. From then on, it was a classic demonstration of what a force that eventually built to over fifty cavalry can do to a defensive force containing far more spearmen than musketmen (and not a single pikeman that I recall).

The only reason Russia survived at all was that it held two thirds of an island southwest of the continent and Germany had no navy of any kind. As it was, they were reduced to a single city (at least for the time being, but that’s another chapter).

By the way, if you have trouble figuring out the “briar patch” reference in the heading, you obviously haven’t read the right Brer Rabbit story (or had it read to you). “Please, please don’t throw me into that briar patch.” “Please, please don’t disconnect my iron so I have to build thirty-shield horsemen instead of seventy-shield knights.”

The enclosed zip file has four saves: (1) Right after I gained contact with the overseas civs, (2) the dawn of my golden age, (3) about a turn after I discovered Education, about the time I launched my offensive against Russia, and (4) right after the defeat of Russia. I hope this isn’t too many, but I figure someone might be interested in them to get a better feel for my strategy and playing style.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Dateline: London, Germany, 880 AD

In the early years of the Russian war, popular sentiment toward England in Germany was almost entirely positive. But once the German offensive began, England was consuming German luxuries and seemingly doing little of value in return. Only a few extremists were actually angry toward England over the situation - Germany certainly didn’t need anyone’s help anymore - but the strong pro-English sentiment of previous times no longer existed.

Then the Russian war ended and Germany found itself with its cavalry force almost completely intact. The golden age had ended, but the nation was still very much in the grip of war fever. England just happened to make a perfect target.

For just over half a century, German cavalry rested, healed, and repositioned themselves. Then in 840 AD, three separate cavalry detachments swept into Oxford, Dover, and through Brighton into Hastings. A much smaller southern force failed in its initial attack on Norwich, but a follow-up succeeded (albeit pushing my cavalry army dangerously into the red). York, Newcastle, and Coventry fell on the second turn, and London, Nottingham, and Warwick on the third. That turn, I also got my fifth great leader from (believe it or not) an old elite swordsman unit fighting outside Norwich. Taking the last two English cities, one of them a conquest from Russia, took two more turns, just because the terrain slowed me down.

Moscow defected back to Russia right before the war, and St. Petersburg joined it toward the end of the war. I’m in no hurry to retake the cities, since one shield and one gold a turn doesn’t contribute much to my economy and any units they build are extra chances to get great leaders . (Although getting the Hanging Gardens back would be nice. )

But now I’m in a dilemma. I still have forty-five cavalry left, plus seventeen musketmen, nine longbowmen, twenty-six swordsmen, and a couple other assorted units. I’m a turn away from being first to discover Astronomy, so the world as a whole is just over four techs away from Nationalism even on a beeline. That would almost certainly give me plenty of time to build ships and take out Rome and Egypt for a domination victory before riflemen can become a factor. (If I do that, my unused leader can build Magellan’s Voyage to speed up my sea travel.)

Part of me wants to do that, but another part thinks, “what’s the point”? I already have more territory than I can make productive, so further conquest would drain Germany more than help it. The role player in me thinks it makes more sense to build up what I have rather than seeking further conquest. In implementing that idea, the logical next move (once I get Bach’s Cathedral, which I’m building in Berlin the hard way) is to move my palace to the southwest to make my conquered Russian territory worth something.

I’ll most likely end up playing out both endings, partly to see how the scores compare. I’m not quite sure which one I’ll do first, but I’ll probably try the peaceful approach first.

I’m enclosing two more saves, one right before the war with England and another right after. By the way, I already had so many surplus military units going into the war that building more simply made no sense (since I wasn’t contemplating an overseas invasion until I saw how many of my cavalry survived the English campaign).

Nathan

[nbarclay]

I noticed my attachments to the last couple messages didn't go through. I'm also going to have to split the one from the Russian story into two for size reasons. Here's the first part regarding Russia.

[nbarclay]

Second pair from the Russian story:

[nbarclay]

And from the English story.

[Theseus]

I got to the point where spoilers don;t matter, so I went ahead and read this stuff.

You guys are doing much better than I, with a variety of strats... I ma getting F*CKED!!!

I don't know, either I wasn;t aggressive enough, or the opposite, but I've been playing catch-up the whole game.

I guess I did not do enough oscillating damage; in my quest to create killer AI civs, I've now got France and Russia as dreadnought threats. I'm around 1000AD, totally outclassed in tech and military... if I come back from this it will be legendary.

I'm keeping a log, and when I get to a point that I can post SAVs and keep my self-respect, I'll tell the whole miserable story.

[Alkis]

I won by diplomatic victory on 1680 AD getting a score of 3980 (I know, it isn't imppressive). I had a space victory in mind but I was building the UN for safety reasons (I wasn't very popular). At some point the Egyptians attacked me. I had a colony city on their continent (just for the gems) which I lost, of course. That was a great opportunity to sign MPP with Russia and Iroquois. I asked the French too but they wanted a great deal of money.

Since all other civs were eliminated I wasn't risking anything to accept the elections. My two allies would never vote against me. One other thing is that I didn't know who would be my rival in the elections. France had better score and probably stronger military but Egypt had better culture and infrastructure. In any case both the Russians and the Iroquois would not vote for France who has been their enemy for years.

In the end it was Bismark vs Cleopatra and I got the two votes from my allies. Joan abstained.

The game was won anyway, I was leading by numerous technologies. I had rocketry, fission, ecology, space flight and the others were still in the industrial age without even electronics. I had constructed three spaceship parts so I could as well refuse the elections. But since I have done that so many times, a diplo victory was ok and a relief actually because my PC slows down in the modern age.

When I watched the replay I realized that I was #1 in the number of cities and this continued up to when I had 8 cities. What happened after? Well, I don't know, I didn't watch all the replay .

About the saves I have an idea. Since we can't post large files can you please email them to me? My email is martides@spidernet.com.cy

I will send mine to anyone who wants them, just give me an email address.

I made a record! I had the biggest city in all my playing experience. Bonn, my new Capitol grew to a size of... hm I don't remember but probably 26 or maybe even more.

Theseus, it's your bad positions that everybody wants to see I have included a save where my position isn't very good, I am under attack from the French who have a lot of units but I thought it would be interesting for the others to see. I think I also have another just before 1x barbarians drained my treasury.

Sir Ralph, I got your message, you didn't attack the English to get the jungle but to cripple them and to get London, right?

Naive question, is it possible to change the location of your forbidden palace? I wasn't satisfied with my FP's location so wanted to move it, I had a leader but there was no way to do it.

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[Harovan]

Originally posted by Alkis
Sir Ralph, I got your message, you didn't attack the English to get the jungle but to cripple them and to get London, right?

Yes. Although also with the intent to claim the jungle. My inner eye saw grassland on his place when planning cities. I put a big effort in cleaning it.

Naive question, is it possible to change the location of your forbidden palace? I wasn't satisfied with my FP's location so wanted to move it, I had a leader but there was no way to do it.

I'm unsure, if you can rebuild it after the city is destroyed. But that would destroy all the other improvements in that city too. I think you should plan the FP location carefully. You can always move your palace around with GLs, but not your FP.

Guys, I had an awful night... About 1:30am (just ONE turn more), the French attacked me with the mentioned huge stack... I played till dawn, went to bed at 5:30am... geez, I'm sleepy now. My boss will love me for this. Shortly: I have 4 spaceship parts built, managed to survive the stack and to kill about 75% of it, but my coreland took a big damage due to bombardements. Got 4 GLs in that process, the Manhattan project, the SS thrusters and 2 armies of Panzers. I made a HUGE mistake, signing a MPP with the Iroquois, when I saw the stack approach. I can't get out of the war, and WW drives me crazy and cripples my Republic (not even Democracy!) even to starvation. At a point, I united the World against Joan the Evil, maybe the next UN vote goes into my favor. I will play it out this evening... if I won't need the time to get a new job after getting fired.

[Alkis]

Nathan,
I had a look at your saves, they are interesting. It seems you didn't build many towns in the beginning. In my game I expanded like crazy and managed to build towns on the spots where Kharkon, Astrakhan and Vladivostock stand in your game. I also made one on the other side on the hill near the wales, two tiles away from the Russian town. But I guess you were busy building military units .

Another difference in our styles is that I build a lot of spearmen. Longbowmen on the other hand I think I never had, even a single one.

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[nbarclay]

The reason I didn't expand farther early was that barbarians slowed me down. I didn't build enough military early to beat them out of my way. Had my "settler pump" strategy not misfired, I would have had several more cities. As it was, I could have grabbed a little more territory, but I was afraid doing so would get me into a conflict with England or Russia before I was ready. So I had to go to "Plan B" and conquer territory instead.

As best I recall, this is probably the first time I've built longbowmen in over six months, since maybe about my third game. The reason was that Russia was attacking Munich, and trying to keep Russian forces from getting on any of the three mountain tiles facing the city didn't seem like a viable option. If Russia had been more aggressive and more competent at protecting their longbowmen with spearmen, the extra point of attack longbowmen have over swordsmen could have come in really handy to pick off enemy units before their longbowmen could strike. As it was, I built more than I needed, but the ones I got a chance to use did their jobs pretty well.

Please DON'T interpret this game as being typical of my playing style, although it's probably a whole lot more typical on Emperor than it is on Monarch. Mostly, it reflects my willingness to adjust my style to address the situation I happen to be faced with at a given time. This game and my game as the Germans in the current CivFanatics GOTM went almost completely differently.

Nathan

[Harovan]

Ok, my nightmare ended after 1 turn this evening. UN-vote, 3 for Bismarck, 1 abstains, Joan for Joan. Diplomatic victory 1730AD, score 4328. That was a hard struggle.

Later more (savegames, may be a map). I'm out for a beer now. Here's an awful heat.

[Alkis]

Nathan,
The game was hard, no doubt. We also set barbs to restless, as if Emperor level combined with bad terrain wasn't enough. Anyway, what I did was that I builded a lot of warriors and actually attacked a couple of barbarian tents. To get 25 gold that early is a great deal of money. The comment on the longbowmen was a positive one. I know that most players don't build them but they have their uses as you rightly said. I think that all of you are excellent players.

Do you remember Dune, where they used windtraps to get every single drop of water? I am like that, I don't want to waste anything. That's why I avoid early wars. But I use opportunities, to grab more land. I think the combat thingy of this game is ****ed up. I get some results that are so irrational that I don't want to battle anymore. Losing knights to archers, for instance. This should never happen.

It is interesting how the three of us managed to get technology. Sir Ralph did that by beating AI civs and extorting technology, you got it from the GL and I by researching certain technologies first. I entered the middle ages at about 850 BC. One question, did you actually build all those swordsmen (33 ) or did you build warriors and then upgraded them?

Sir Ralph,
I would like to see your saves, so if you can please email them to me. Then I' ll have your email to send you mine. Btw the picture under your name is it you now, or is it you in a previous life?

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